1898: Potato Chips for Breakfast (Electricity for Dinner)

Chips are weighed by machine before being packaged at the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory.Credit
Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

Potato chips first showed up in The Times in a Dec. 26, 1898, article listing typical breakfast menus for upper-class families in Puerto Rico.

If that seems slightly unorthodox now, a later mention was even more startling. On Dec. 4, 1912, under the headline “Electricity Replaces Food,” The Times reported that a French scientist had concluded that a good jolt of electricity — 1,000 volts — was equal in food value to a porterhouse steak and potato chips.

Just four months before that, an article detailing the theory began with a quotation from the scientist, Prof. Bergonie, that was shocking on any number of levels: “If a man is hungry, give him electricity. If he asks for bread or beefsteak, put him in the electric chair and turn on the current.”

The 1,000-volt diet never caught on — given a choice between the electric chair and potato chips, the hungry invariably go for the chips.